For older players - using the clock, memorizing openings

But he has a hook and he's left handed . . .

Hook-a-rook? That could be quite an advantage!

One thing I did yesterday, was make a diagram in my opening notebook. ... There was 1 key move in the Icelandic gambit I was having trouble remembering. I took my set of chess piece stamps [made for postal players ] and in my opening notebook made a diagram of the position with the key move. Of course it is trouble and takes time but the more trouble, the easier recalled. I can also flip through the notebook, look at the figures I made and review the key moves.

This is a great idea and something I do a lot. If I'm trying to learn a new topic (often technical as I work in engineering) I will draw different diagrams that illustrate the topic but emphasise subtly different ideas. I try to do this from memory after I've learned about the topic. The mental process is that I'm recalling the subject and then recomitting to memory in a new way, as a diagram or picture. I work on an A3 pad so I can get everything on a single sheet and sketch relationships between different ideas.

Mark-- I'm just reading "Make it stick" and there is a lot of research in cognitive science saying what you do is exactly the best. Rereading puts stuff in short term memory, reconstruction puts it into long term memory. I also read that it seems like "processes" are stored differently them facts so I also try to summarize the process of playing a position e.g., "pry open the rook file, sac, sac, mate". -like what TumpaiTurbo writes above.

and I just saw you were talking about process memory earlier!

This seems very good advice. 

Yeah process memory and factual memory. I think the proper term for factual is declarative memory. Process memory is stronger normally because of the relationships or constraints that exist between the things which helps the recall process. When you recall something to working memory, subcontously you bring with it references to the next thing. I'm a designer and occasionally develop user interfaces for industrial equipment. Good interfaces are easy to remember and match people's existing mental models, no one reads the manual or it gets lost, so I learned a bit about memory and how people learn and remember things. Topics like short and long term memory, recall and reconstruction, are crucial to the learning process. Cousera, the internet course provider. have a free online course called Learning How To Learn which goes in to some of this. Worth a look if the learning process interests you.

Hi Toby. That's a great idea. It's not just motor skills then (I dont know much about martial arts I'm afraid). Reconstructing the same ideas or knowledge in different ways, maybe with different emphasis, is a great way to build understanding and reinforce memories. IMO these techniques are a necessary part of mastery.

Bill: you mentioned summarising the moves, e.g. "pry open the rook file...". This is what I refer to as 'Story Telling' which is another great way to remember and build understanding. As you say, it uses process memory which is easier to recall. I think story telling works well for chess because it emphasises the reasons behind the moves, the same reasons will appear in different positions which is the basis of pattern recognition. Also, if you cant find a good reason then that in turn highlights a gap in understanding which you can then research so it converts an unknown-unknown to a known-unknown. What's not to like ? 😁

I agree here, many times I would be narrating the moves in my head

I believe I understand more and retain more when I read game descriptions that involve story telling [which is an elegant way to put it, by the way], but far too much annotation doesn't do that. It's just strings of moves and alternate moves [lines], with little explanation beyond "Bg7 is the stronger move, although theory has long maintained that Qb6 is superior."  Forty years ago I might have found that helpful, but now, it's completely useless. I don't know how other older players navigate that kind of annotation.

I have the 12th Edition of Walter Korn's "Modern Chess Openings" (yes, I know I need something more modern, with algebraic notation), and while each opening has an introduction page of explanatory text, the rest is just strings of annotation which requires more mental energy than I can usually spare at the time. 

One reason I love Tal's book ["Life and Games"] is because he often accompanies his very technical annotation with a verbal explanation of his thought process, or what he believed his opponent was thinking. 

My difficulty, I think, comes from the fact that for 20 years my job involved cramming information into short-term memory, reassembling it and molding it into an abstract, and then immediately ejecting it and repeating the process with another bundle of information. I would read and then write about, for example, the GDP of Ethiopia, followed by a review of a new Japanese memory chip, followed by a review of a new machine for making paper. 

Before embarking on that fascinating career [and it was fascinating and very rewarding], I was able to write 10 page articles and 100 page novellas. I could see several moves ahead in chess.

But by the time that career was over I could not string together more than 500 words on any topic. And my chess was back at beginner level.

A couple years ago when I was keeping a little chess openings notebook, for some reason I decided to learn as much as possible about the Caro-Kann defense. But I never got beyond the first page of the Caro-Kann section in my "Modern Chess Openings" book. 

Thank you. I will seek out both books. I really enjoy huddling over my chess board, playing out games...  

Hi Tony. Where you a journalist? My simplistic understanding of journalism is that they have to master a subject when a story breaks and then dump all that knowledge to make space for the next one. You may find move-by-move books helpful. Every move is explained. Logical Chess by Irving Chernev is well known and recommended for beginners. Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking by McDonald is another I've seen recommended as a follow on to Logical Chess and for intermediate player. Understanding Chess Move by Move and Grandmaster Chess Move by Move, both by John Nunn are two more. I understand your frustration with the openings. I find the only way is to study the same lines from multiple sources, both books and internet, and piece together the reasoning. What one person leaves out another emphasises with great importance.

"I've never played "blitz" and have no intention of doing so." Yet you've played "blitz" game's on this website. And I struggle to understand the old notation, to me it doesn't make much sense, the newer notation is much better. 

I'm 60 and very comfortable with chess clocks.  It keeps the games going, by avoiding situations where an opponent is losing, and moving slower and slower.  I've played in many USCF rated tournaments, so I am accustomed to using the clock.  Digital chess clocks have the wonderful advantage of allowing for time controls with increments.  This avoids a lot of disputes about the "insufficient losing chances" rule by getting rid of the need for adjuration by a referee.

I like game-in-15 minutes with a 5-second delay.  But I can play as fast as game-in-5-minutes, no delay.  I also play game-in-10 with no delay here on chess.com.  In OTB USCF tournaments, my time controls were much slower, with individual games lasting a total of 5 or 7 hours

@MarkGrubb: I was a writer of abstracts. I read articles about business and technology and wrote an abstract of each article. Then I applied proprietary alphanumeric codes to each abstract. I wrote between 4 and 8 abstracts an hour.  So the work process was 1) absorb lots of data really fast, then 2) shrink it down to the essentials really fast, then 3) classify what you wrote, really fast.

I also did this on a freelance basis, with articles from scholarly history and political science journals. 

Thank you for the book recommendations. I have a book by Chernev, but I forget which one. 

Another book I find to be very useful is Anthony Saidy's "The March of Chess Ideas." Lots of explanation there, because he is comparing the chess philosophies of different players.

I envy you. As I think I mentioned earlier, when I learned to play we never used a clock. The idea of using a clock never even came up. I can remember matches in high school when it was well past dark, and our faculty advisor was standing by, smoking his pipe, waiting for the last game to finish so he could drop our players off at their homes.

I have never played in a tournament.

One reason my "Modern Chess Openings' is less than useful is that so much of it sounds like experts talking to each other. It's useless to read though all the alternate lines and variations to the alternate lines because so little real explanation is given.

I just can't see 6 or 7 or 8 moves ahead in order to understand why one line is superior to another in a particular situation. How many non-elite players can do that? In my younger days I could see and calculate perhaps 4 or 5 moves ahead, but those days are long gone.